But this was different. As far as anyone could tell, nobody had done anything that could offend the spirits that went on a rampage, and definitely not enough to make them so violently tear apart the victim.

  Of course, there were some more-fringe news channels trying to paint the victim, Marge, as some kind of sicko who deserved to be killed like this, but Silvia knew that couldn’t be the case. Modak had been talking about her like she was some kind of saint. This was most definitely a case of the spirits having been corrupted. It already looked like some smaller celebrations were being cancelled, and the big ones would probably see fewer people today. The idea that spirits could be violent like this was clearly worrying a lot of people, exactly as the White Shadow Society wanted.

  “I need to … I need to do something to help,” Silvia said to herself. Her class was a production class. When it came to something like combat, she was a supportive role.

  Was there a way for her to help out in combat? With her Artist’s Gallery skill, she could basically store away some of the art she made. If she was able to be there, in the background, and then give the others whatever art they needed while things were going on … maybe she could help strengthen everyone a bit.

  “But for that, my art needs to be good enough to be useful … What would be useful in the middle of a fight?” Silvia wondered, biting her nails. Right now, she wasn’t able to do a ton yet. She was able to strengthen items to a small degree, and she could influence emotion through things she painted. At least at the moment, Silvia wasn’t able to give buffs just through paintings, and swapping out items in the middle of a fight didn’t sound useful enough to justify being there. If she followed Ryan around, he would need to protect her.

  “Think … What is it that Ryan mentioned he needs right now? Something that I can give him that will help him in a fight? I can’t just sit here and do nothing …” she muttered, taking notes on a piece of paper with whatever came to mind. Which was when she thought of something. A paper airplane. Silvia had made one before, and using her skills, it flew pretty far. Rather, it could have flown for much longer if it hadn’t hit Ryan. And that was just something she drew without thought.

  What if Silvia could make Ryan something that he could just throw into the air and use to fly around the area, maybe distracting or luring enemies? In that case, Silvia would just be able to prepare a stack of paper for him, and then he could throw one into the air and it would fly away and do its thing.

  But for that, Silvia would need a few more things … for one, an image of something distracting or luring, something that would force dungeon monsters or even thoughtless people to pay attention to it. Plus, it would need a way for Ryan to actually control it. Would Silvia be able to push all of those things into a single drawing, on a piece of paper?

  “… I guess I just have to try.”

  Immediately, Silvia grabbed her drawing supplies and started sketching a few things on a piece of paper. Silvia just had to do something.

  Ryan stared at the screen in front of him, doing some more in-depth research on something.

  Reaching the peak of the leveling system is not something done easily. Rather, at any one time, there are only a handful of individuals that have reached this point. The power they hold is almost insurmountable in their respective categories, and that is not even counting the special benefits that are awarded by the system when one reaches that point.

  The stats, skills, and experience gathered by the individual alone are enough to make them a power that can threaten the stability of a given nation.

  “… Nothing new. Do you guys know anything about max level?” Ryan asked, looking over to the side. Jester was sitting on a pillow on his bed, just relaxing, while Maximus was right next to Ryan on the desk, reading along. The two spirits locked eyes for a moment, then shook their head. However, Maximus stood up and traced a small symbol on the back of Ryan’s hand.

  “A star? What do you mean?” he asked, but Maximus just shrugged. With a loud groan, Ryan leaned back in his chair. “Gods … seriously? Fucking amnesia … Dad, why couldn’t you have just … not done this to them? Urgh …”

  Ryan had been trying to find something new about max level for a while now. He had, of course, read up on it a lot before, but that was always just mindless browsing and not actual deep research. He wanted to understand the implications of becoming max level more. After Runar told him that he was level 99, Ryan wasn’t able to protest anymore. Someone that powerful had to be able to take care of this all on their own, and Ryan would just get completely in the way if he tried to do something. But there was something more. Some other reason as to why Runar hadn’t told him about his level before.

  Of course, Ryan had considered that Runar just wanted to keep it a secret to ensure that this couldn’t spread to enemies, but that didn’t feel right. There was surely something more connected to being max level that Runar knew, that he hadn’t told Ryan yet. Somewhere on the internet, there had to be a clue as to why becoming max level was so special. And how was it related to stars?

  Ryan stared at the screen, trying to think of something, but no matter what, nothing came of it. He was just stuck somewhere. And that was when a great distraction came through. Ryan’s phone rang, and the moment he saw the caller ID, he picked up.

  “Modak! Are you alright? How is your arm?” he asked, feeling his heart almost jump out of his chest in anxiety, but Modak just laughed on the other side.

  “Don’t worry, man; I’m alright. Physically, at least … yesterday was pretty fucking insane. Do you know if they’re going to try anything else?”

  Ryan sighed, exhausted. “I don’t know, maybe? Probably? Runar is out trying to stop anything else from happening, and I guess he’ll do a good job. But … we’ll see. At this point, there’s nothing we can really do, I think.”

  The other side of the call was silent for a few moments. Modak clearly wasn’t happy with that. “Okay, I’m going to ask you something insane right now, and I want you to just wait until I explain it before you freak out.”

  Nervous, Ryan responded. “Uh … sure? What’s up?”

  “Can I go into a dungeon with you?”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Hospital Visit

  Ryan stepped into the hospital room, seeing four people already in there. Of course there was Modak, who was sitting upright in bed, and right next to him stood Yanna. On the chairs next to the bed were Silvia and Fae, who had also come to visit them together.

  He did the rounds and greeted everyone with a hug but was quickly met with some curious stares from everyone but Fae. She was the only one who didn’t know about Ryan having been invited to see Goria. And it really didn’t surprise Ryan that the others were extremely curious about what had happened.

  “So? How was it?” Silvia asked, leaning forward until she almost fell out of bed. Ryan scratched the back of his head, trying to hold in a yawn.

  “Fine, but honestly, just exhausting as hell,” he explained. “But it was enough for me to increase my stamina a bit, so it was pretty worth it.”

  “That’s it? You just got a few stamina points?” Modak asked, staring at his friend with a raised eyebrow, and Ryan sighed.

  “No, I did get a few more things. Some magic items; hold on,” Ryan explained, pulling his bag off his back. Meanwhile, Fae was looking around, confused.

  “Uhm … What’s going on? Where did Ryan go?” she asked, and Silvia looked at her girlfriend with a grin.

  “Oh, not much. He just went to meet Goria. You know, the Great Spirit of Water? Yeah, no big deal,” she said smugly.

  Ryan scoffed as he glanced at her. “Why are you acting like it’s something you did?”

  Surprised, and confused that everybody else was just believing this clearly unbelievable news, Fae stared at Ryan. “Hold on; what? You … you went to meet with Goria? Seriously? But … you’re just, like, a guy, right?”

  “That … I mean … You’re not wrong, but the way you said it sounded a bit insulting.” Ryan finally pulled the drinking horn out of his bag. “I ended up helping out a spirit at the lake the other day, when everyone just sort of plummeted down and stuff, and Goria invited me afterward. I went through … someone I know, and we got in contact with Goria’s acolytes, and they helped me get down there. But I basically had to walk down some stairs for a few hours … I started toward the top of the mountains in the Falls and had to walk down to some reservoir under Oldtown. So, a pretty long way.”

  “… Seriously?” Fae asked, looking around the room. Both Modak and Silvia confidently nodded, though Yanna also wasn’t perfectly convinced yet. But it seemed as though Ryan had something to at least help the two of them along to believing him a bit more.

  He took a deep breath, and some water flowed out of the horn’s opening. It climbed on top of itself, freezing along the way, until it took on the shape of a baseball bat. Then the ice melted and reshaped itself into the form of a sword, and then a shield, and then a shovel and pickaxe, all within a matter of moments. “This item is called the Horn of Shapeless Water. As you can see, it’s pretty sick.”

  “Whoa, wait; how does that—” Modak stared at the shaped piece of ice curiously, almost jumping off the bed to take a closer look. But the moment he moved just a bit too fast, he cramped up and pulled his arms down to his ribs. “Ah, fucking—”

  “Take it easy, dude,” Ryan said, walking over to the orc to show him the horn more closely. “Basically, I just push my mana into it and think of the shape that I want it to have. The horn sorta does the rest.”

  Modak grabbed the horn and took a closer look, running his fingers over all the little grooves. He was basically analyzing it, and Ryan continued. “I also got these earrings that are pretty neat. They let me breathe underwater and stuff. It feels a bit weird, like, for the first few moments, it kind of feels like you’re drowning, but then your mind catches up to what’s happening and then it’s all good.”

  “Did you just say it feels like drowning? How do you know what drowning feels like?” Yanna asked with a slight laugh, though she stopped herself and snapped her head toward Silvia, who shook her head with a smile. Silvia mouthed. Don’t worry, toward her, then grinned broadly.

  As she breathed a sigh of relief, Ryan continued. “Well, I don’t think that’s important right now. The last item is something related to finding cores of other spirits connected to water in some way. I gave it to someone to have it strengthened into something so we can search a larger area.”

  As he explained this, Modak and Silvia stared at him, confused. He had just said that in front of two people who had no idea about the whole fragment business, and Ryan already knew what they were worried about.

  “Guys, don’t worry. I decided that I’m not going to keep my own business a secret anymore. I won’t say anything that’ll put others in danger, though,” he explained, and as the orc and elf calmed down, Ryan proceeded to fill Yanna and Fae in on some parts related to his class. Not everything, of course. He basically kept out anything that was directly related to the Aglecards or the people living in hiding in this world. Really, he just stuck to the things that he felt like he should be allowed to talk freely about. Runar might complain, but Ryan didn’t care anymore.

  “… Is that what that whole weirdness was about? Like, why that girl yelled at Silvia and me? It seemed like you guys knew something about it, but …” Fae asked, and Ryan quickly nodded.

  “Yup. It sounds like I’m kind of messing up a few things here and there, but in the end, I don’t think it matters too much,” he said, though he was trying to convince himself with that as well. Runar had told him that whole thing about causality, but it was still pretty tough to accept that Ryan was apparently messing with the fate of everyone he interacted with. Of course, Ryan hadn’t said that in specific detail. For example, he didn’t explain that he apparently acted completely outside of fate, and just said that he somehow skewed things a bit. Maybe it was lying, but he also didn’t want to drag Yanna and Fae into all of this. He already felt guilty that Silvia and Modak were part of this world now.

  Yanna rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Honestly, this is all … a little much to keep track of. So … your class isn’t a unique class at all?”

  “Not really. I mean, only one person with it can exist at a time, so it’s kind of unique? But no, I’m not the first one that had this class.”

  “And you’re supposed to go around and find all these cores scattered around by the last Spirit Keeper?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Ryan nodded. “It’s going to take a while, but it’s what I’ve got to do. And for that, I’ve got to get stronger. I’ll probably head back into a dungeon soon.”

  As he said so, Ryan glanced over toward Modak. The orc flinched at the mention of the word dungeon. For the rest of the conversation, he was quite tense, as if he were waiting for the right opportunity to speak up. Realizing that Modak was clearly too nervous to ask, Ryan did so for him.

  “Yanna, Fae, I’ve got something to talk about with Modak and Silvia; would you guys mind stepping out for a little bit?” he asked, and the two of them were a bit surprised.

  “Huh? Oh, uh …” Yanna looked over at Modak, who slowly nodded. Fae also looked at Silvia for approval, and though she seemed a bit confused, not knowing what this was about either, she also asked Fae to leave for a bit.

  “In that case … Fae, want to go grab a bite to eat? The cafeteria is actually pretty good here,” Yanna suggested, and with a smile, Fae nodded.

  “Sure, let’s go.”

  And so, the two made their way out of the room, and the moment the door closed, Ryan pulled something else out of his bag. It was the small metal pyramid that was used to create a space for private conversations, and Ryan quickly put it on the foot of the bed before activating it.

  The moment that was done, Silvia looked at Ryan. “Okay, what’s going on? Why did you just … tell them all of that?”

  Ryan smiled at the elf. “Because I decided not to keep secrets like that anymore. But, more importantly …” He looked over at Modak, who seemed to already be trying to find the right words. “Did Modak tell you about his genius idea?”

  “Uhh … No? What’s going on?” she asked. Modak took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “I told Ryan that I want to go into a dungeon with him. I know that it’s stupid, and I know that it’s really dangerous, but apparently, combat is the best way for an orc to become aware of their own aura, and I—”

  “Me too,” Silvia said bluntly. “I also want to come into the dungeon.”

  Ryan stared at the elf, taken aback. “Excuse me? Silvia, you’re a—you’re a production class; you’re not made for fighting.”

  “So? Then just let me support you from the back lines. If I can see you in actual combat, then I should be able to make better items to help you in combat later on, right?” Silvia pointed out, and Ryan let out a long, deep groan, thinking.

  “… Okay, well … At the very least, it would be useful to bring Silvia for the gift shop items, and if she stays in the back … maybe it would be okay?” Ryan was practically thinking out loud, looking over at Modak. “But actually participating in a fight? I’ve never seen you even try to swat a fly, man.”

  “I know, but … listen, I explained it to you on the phone, right? There’s so much stuff going on around us now that we’re involved in, and it’s dangerous. And, because of my MRD, my body is perfectly attuned for aura. Things like aura and mana existed since long before the system came about, and there’s plenty of mages that act without the system, even if they have less power than Awakened mages, so …”

  “Right, right, I get it …” Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Modak was immensely helpful and had known how to handle himself back when the robot with Gaia’s fragment went berserk. Really, he ended up saving Ryan’s ass big-time. He crossed his arms and thought intensely. “Alright, but I’m only taking you under a few very specific conditions.”

  Silvia and Modak immediately nodded, and Ryan said, “First, you two have to listen to me. If I tell you to pull back, you pull back. If I tell you to hide, you hide. I’m getting better at team play now, so I promise you, if I say something, even if you don’t know why I’m saying it, I know better, okay?”

  The two agreed. “Second. You’re both going to be equipped with decent armor and weapons. Modak, if you’re saying that you want to ‘realize your aura’ or something, I’m guessing you have to fight against enemies directly. So, think deeply about exactly how you want to fight, and then tell me, and we’ll have the production crew make you what you need,” he said, then turned to Silvia. “And you, you’re going to learn how to handle a mana-powered gun. Again, since you don’t have any combat-related skills, you won’t be joining combat, but you need to be able to handle yourself. Got it?”

  “Yessir.” Modak and Silvia briefly saluted Ryan, who just let out a long sigh.

  He was a bit worried, looking at them. “Guys, seriously, I’m not kidding. Dungeons are dangerous. Really, really dangerous. I nearly died in my first dungeon. You can only come with me if you’re totally, absolutely serious about this.”

  “I’m super serious! I’ve been thinking about what to do to help you out more, since you know I haven’t really been doing a ton despite being your aide, and I came up with something great!”

  Silvia pushed her hand into the middle of the air and did a motion as if pulling something from a wall. As she did, a piece of paper magically materialized in her hands, and she quickly handed it to Ryan. “Here!”

  Ryan looked at the paper. On it was a drawing of a dove with its wings stretched out, flying over vast clouds.